Yi – Interactive Yoga

Yi is an interactive yoga mat that provides the user with a new yoga experience. With Yi, every place can be transformed into the perfect yoga environment. The lighting in the mat enriches the yoga experience; it creates a relaxing atmosphere and it supports the user with feedback throughout the exercises. Yi shows how to get in position, how you are balanced and how to breathe.

The yoga mat is designed for people who are already familiar with the practice. It enables them to perform the exercises at home while still getting accurate feedback on their balance. The user can select a workout or a sequence of exercises in an application and from that point on Yi becomes the yoga teacher. The surfaces at which hand and feet need to be placed light up to show the position for the next exercise. These surfaces respond to touch and the light intensity changes according to the pressure and balance. Once in balance, the brightness guides the desired breathing pattern.

The yoga mat is a result of the course Interactive Technology Design. The objective of this course is to come to a design through iterations of quick prototyping and subsequent tests. The assignment was to design an application for the Light.Touch.Matters (LTM) material: flexible OLED sheeting that is pressure sensitive. This material is still under development in an EU FP7 project coordinated by TU Delft.

Technology:

Arduino Mega

8 Force sensors (handmade with Velostat)

58 NeoPixel LEDs

Yi has been on display at the Material Library of the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft. The project is being continued in other courses within the faculty.

This design assignment was inspired by the EU FP7 project Light.Touch.Matters